Comment by proc0 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by proc0 | Hacker News Reader

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> The correlate to the people you are describing in the United States are referred to as the 'homeless.'

It really isn't, and I'm assuming you have never been to Brasil, Bolivia, Peru (Venezuela is out of the question for travelers, but also another example), not to mention Central America and parts of Mexico, I'm sure.

We're talking about inter-generational poverty. People having absolutely no knowledge of what it's like to live a normal life. Poverty that takes you back in time. Some of these places don't have running water or electricity (in fact, no electricity isn't even a big deal in these areas, people are used to it).

Also the dirt roads I mention isn't some rural countryside. I'm talking about poor towns and cities, that have no resources to pave the roads. I still remember TV ads with politicians constantly promising to pave those heavily used roads, but of course it's rampant with corruption.

I think anyone who has not travelled outside of a developed nation, like the US or the UK, probably cannot imagine what people in poor countries consider their every day reality. The contrast is stark, and I'll repeat as many times as necessary, poor people in the US are not really poor. I guess some of them just take their developed nation for granted.

I was just responding to your assertion that poverty doesn't really exist in the United States. It's not as widespread as in Latin America, and tends to be more sporadic, but there are hundreds of thousands of people living in tents and improvised shelters with no access to running water or electricity and no hope for the future here. The United States is no more a homogeneous bloc of wealth and prosperity than Latin America is a continuous favela of poverty.

I read your core argument in this post to be that the form of poverty you describe is much more widespread in Latin America than in the United States. I'd be a fool to disagree with you on that. Yes, you're right.

I'm certainly not trying to win a pity contest and say that the United States is a horrible place where everything sucks. That would be absurd. But for many people, the United States is a much shittier place than you make it out to be.

As for the challenges of these places, they are daunting indeed. The United States is about as toxic a neighbor as one could ask for. Sending money and guns South, and bringing drugs North. Mounting coups. Stealing the best and the brightest from countries that desperately need that human capital. Putting children fleeing violence and poverty in cages. None of it should sit right with someone who has a modicum of conscience. But, as you have seen from our recent political battles, we barely know what to do to fix ourselves, let-alone help our neighbors. Our country is grappling with it's own reckoning as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Our Gini is 0.48 and growing. Mexico's is 0.5. With every passing year the homeless encampments get larger.

Perhaps the time will come when the fortunes are reversed?

It wasn't my intention to be lecturing, sorry. My point was around the perception of what poor is, given the article. Rich people can't understand poor people in the US, and I'm pointing out this happens on every level at the global scale. It's easy to lose perspective and think that because you're in a tent in SF or Seattle, that means you know the extent of what it means to be poor, when in fact they have some resources, help, and opportunities.

This is visible when you compare and contrast those immigrants that cross the border with the homeless population. Of course not all homeless people are the same, but I believe the contrast is clear, immigrants have a hard time getting here but when they do they still work as hard as they can, and from my experience they are more than happy doing so. Their previous situation was so bad, they are happy to be cleaning, farming, gardening etc., because it's so much better than where they came from in Latin America. This attitude difference is directly coming from their perspective of poverty.

It's all good food for thought.

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